Display all images in Google Drive folder as galle...

chris_weiler · 10-27-2021 03:07 PM

Hello,

I work for a custom millwork company and we work on large scale condo projects.
I created an app for our on site guys to use to send back information to the shop however I am struggling with the images part.

Right now, when they click on the respective condo unit, they are told all of the cabinetry specifications, as well as a floorplan, and they are able to set tasks to complete as they wish. They are not willing to manually upload each image for each unit, this would be a task that takes a long time when talking hundreds of units per day with 10+ pictures each.

After spending a long time searching for a way, I have come to accept that there is no “multi-select” for an image upload in app sheets, only individually.

Now, I have created a separate account for my Google drive so that they can upload images to a folder for each unit, this folder name matches the unit number on the spreadsheet. What I would like to be able to do is to display all the images in that folder automatically within the specs for each unit, in a gallery sort of view along with all the other information mentioned above. Ideally, I would like to link the folder name to the [Unit Number] column in my sheet.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to achieve this?

Thanks for the help,

Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

If understanding of your requirement is correct, have you taken a look at the Google drive folder as a data source option?

I tested with a Google drive folder containing images as a data source and it displays images in gallery view. You may need to work more on approach of displaying the image names part ( label in gallary view).

The file column in the folder table in the app needs to be “Image” type.

Below is the gallary view of images from Google drive folder , tested in a test app. As mentioned , please work on approach for displaying user friendly image names.

chris_weiler

Thank you Suvrutt, that works great however would require me to create hundreds of tables in that fashion, I am hoping you can possibly help me tweak it slightly.

I have a folder called “Unit Images” where 343 folders with unit numbers are stored. If I connect the data source as the main folder, I cannot see the individual images inside of each, I need to link each folder to their own table.

Would there be a way you can think of that would allow me to show the contents of these folders without manual table creation for each? I need to then link these folders according to the [Unit Number] column

Thanks for your help,

Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Oh okay. Got it. I am afraid there does not appear to be a way by which you will be able to seamlessly show images from 343 folders when these are not uploaded through the app.

One can use folders and subfolders that have same root folder where the app’s backend spreadsheet is stored. However in this case one will need to upload the entire path of the images, so image name file needs to be known in each case.

if there is a pattern in image names that can identify the unit number, all the images could possibly be stored in one folder, and thereafter may be sorted and displayed by unit number, even though this needs to be tested,

I cannot immediately think of a solution for your requirement. If I come across one, I will post back.

Someone else may have a possible solution for your case.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Another option is if people associated with unit numbers are known or if there is a pattern in datetime stamp when the images are uploaded, those parameters could be used for grouping the files by units. The Google drive folder table has [CreateTime] and [Last Modified By] columns.

chris_weiler

That is an option as well, although there is no consistency amongst those items and renaming each may be tricky.

I may have to see if I can somehow integrate an Google Drive upload form into my WordPress website that allows the uploaded to select the unit folder, which would in turn also set a column value of said unit number

chris_weiler

Hi Suvrutt,

I have created an image upload form allowing me to name the file as so:

[Job Name].[Image Number].[Random Number].png

These images are currently being saved to the directory “Excel Sheets/filelist_Images/”

In detail view, I can see all aspects of a job. I would like to be able to include any images where the file name contains the job number of the respective detail view. Can you think of any way that I would able to complete this task?

Thanks,
Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Is this form in the app? If so, can you please share a sample of how the image name looks in the backend sheet, the type of column where this image is saved ? Is the directory path (“Excel Sheets/filelist_Images/”) in the root folder path of the app where app’s backend sheet is saved?

chris_weiler

Hi Suvrutt, thanks for the response.

The form is in the app, I have

[Job Number][Image1][Image2][Image3][Image4] etc…

The Image columns are populated like this: “filelist_Images/[Job Number].[Image Column Number].103925.png”, filelist_Images being the folder where these images are being stored,

The excel sheets folder is the root where the main data is stored for this app

I believe that covers all of your questions.

Thanks for the help,
Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Thank you Chris. A few more queries that I did not ask earlier. My bad.

The detail view where you wish to show the images and the form view that captures images , are these based on same or different tables? Could you make the table relations clearer?

Also could you update any reason you have reverted back to app based images capture when the post thread started because you mentioned you had challenges capturing a high number of images quickly through the app.

chris_weiler

Thank you for taking the time to look into this, I really appreciate your help. You have atleast got me to a point where I had not been before, progress!

Hoping someone else may have some insight as well

chris_weiler

Hi Suvrutt,

The detail view that shows the images is based on a different table.
The detail view is pulling all data from a table called [ONGOING], which shows all ongoing jobs. The table that captures the images is a separate table called [IMAGES] where there are 15 input boxes for images, all with a showif based on whether a picture was entered in the last input. I would like to keep these tables separate as there is also manual data entered into the ongoing jobs sheet through Google Sheets.

The reason why I have reverted back is because I could not find a way to automate the upload process through any third party automation, the best I could do would still require manual file renaming prior to upload. If manually renamed, I could have used Integrately or Automate to move the files around my Google Drive based on the file name, but I cannot find a way to do that with ease.

If possible, I would love to be able to display contents of a ZIP folder within appsheet, this would allow me to have the field employees zip all photos of an individual unit into a folder, then upload that folder, have appsheet then display contents in gallery view however I cannot find any way of achieving this.

I would like to thank you for all the support you’ve provided on this by the way. I am slowly learning how to better my apps through appsheet.

Thanks,
Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Thank you for all the details.
You have mentioned you have an image naming pattern of /[Job Number].[Image Column Number].103925.png ”

The way AppSheet automatically names the images uploaded through the app as TableKey.ImagecolumnName.Timestamp, it sounds that you have job number as a key in the “Images” table? Is that correct? Could you confirm?

If so, you could make the “Ongoing” table the reference to the “Images” table and job number as key of the “Images” table. However, this will put a restriction that you could have only one record of images table per record of Jobs table.

With the above arrangement. You could simply display all the images from the child record in “Images” table attached to the jobs table “Ongoing” as a child record.

Hope this helps and makes sense. Please post back if you have any more queries.

Edit: Minor edits

chris_weiler

So I am getting closer now, however I am still having a bit of trouble.

I am able to successfully upload images, and I have a gallery view that is breaking them down into folders based on the [JOB NUMBER] column. I am however struggling to reference these columns back to the main job itself. In the [IMAGE DIRECTORY] column on each job, what would your suggestion be to show only the relative folder? I have tried by using a REF type, however the spreadsheet then fails to load

Thanks,
Chris

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Hi Chris,

I thought we are referring to a single folder filelist_Images/ and all images are stored therein. Not sure what you mean by multiple folders again.

Could you share your relevant table column names , especially the columns that connect the two tables with associated expressions and column types? I am unable to understand the relationship now.

chris_weiler

My apologies as I may have worded that confusingly, they are all in the filelist_Images folder, however the app is succesfully breaking that down by job name now, into a group which i referred to as a folder in my last message. I have attached an image of what I am receiving from the app. Inside each of these are 6 images relative to the job number.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Thank you.

As requested, could you list the columns in both the tables. something like below?

Table : ONGOING

[Job Number]- Text Type Key Column
[Job Name] -Text Type label

Table : Images

[Image ID] - Key column
[Image Name] Text Type, label
[Job Number] - Reference column to Ongoing table, Text Type
[Image 1]
[Image2]
…

This will enable us to know how you have connected the two tables.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

As suggested, if you could make “Image” table’s key column as reference to Jobs table, you could access images record of the relevant job from the corresponding job record.

Display all images in Google Drive folder as gallery